This is an original closed RP, put together by myself and elpemmy. We are doing this to improve our writing skills, and if you happen to want to read what we write, and have something constructive to say, we would love to hear it. If you want to join us, PM me, and elpemmy and I will decide on a set of rigorous, arbitrary, as yet undecided on criteria.

New Cork Preparatory Academy

Two blocks away from Central Park in Malhattan there stands a comparatively small building, four stories high, made of dark red brick with nearly an acre of land surrounding it. Between this lawn and the sidewalk is a large iron gate reading "New Cork Preparatory Academy".

This school is the finest private high school on the island, and young men and women pay the equivalent of college tuition to attend, and come from all over the world to study at this fine academy, and to attend the legendary parties.

New Cork

New Cork is not as well known a city as one might think. Between the monuments, famous buildings, towering skyscrapers and bustling streets, one would think of it as an urban paradise.

However there is a seamy underbelly, as in every city. Corporate greed slowly sucks the life out of thousands of people, and the criminal underworld can in an instant ruin someone forever. Mysterious rumors of a unifying master criminal have circulated, but law enforcement does not acknowledge these rumors, and mostly only children spread them.

Passing Characters
Jennifer Waverly- Girl immediately behind Amelia in alphabetical order. Tells her about Tricia. Has a brother at NCPA

Boys
Luke Jones: Shy boy, helps Amelia find Tricia and is hugged

Popular Girls
Mallory Feldman: Popular girl with dark hair. Vegan
Tricia North:- Junior, most popular girl in school. Amelia kisses her bottom. Has a happy couple boyfriend
Jodie: Sexy librarian type.

Miscellaneous Important People
Danielle: Sat next to Elaine in assembly. Freinds with her. On track team.

Name: Amelia Waters

Description: Amelia is fairly pretty, with classical Italian good looks, very dark brown hair, and gray eyes that turn blue when she is upset or sleep deprived. She tends to wear tight clothes, and keeps her waist length hair either loose or in a practical pony tail. She almost never wears make-up, and is never seen without a perfect manicure.

Biography:Amelia was born in 1994 to Frank Waters, a nuclear physicist and Mary Daly-Waters, a biological researcher turned housewife turned graphic artist. Amelia, Frank, Mary, and Amelia's older brother Trevor lived in Daryland, a few hours drive south of New Cork, and Frank worked at a plant a two hour commute away so that he "wouldn't get that radioactive crap near the children". Trevor was fascinated by art, but Amelia's first word was neutron and from the time she was 3 she would spend hours on the computer and slowly puzzling through her father's technical magazines. She didn't understand most of it, but she became certain that she wanted to work with computers. She was seven when she convinced her mom to let her go with her dad to work.

So Trevor, Amelia and Frank all went down to the plant, and Amelia avidly watched what her father did, while Trevor attempted not to complain that he was bored. And then a red light came on below the main panel near the reactor. Amelia saw it, but assumed it was normal. Seven hours later the entire plant was evacuated and everyone cycled through the hospital for treatment for massive radiation exposure caused by a pinhole leak in the waste containers.

Everyone was fine, but small changes started taking place in everyone under the age of 25, which was Amelia, Trevor, and an intern. They got taller. Their voices all got much higher or lower. They seemed to get stronger without doing any exercise, and could eat without gaining weight. The intern got better at his job, eventually being able to enter data so fast he was destroying keyboards, before he died in a car crash. Amelia's affinity with computers got stronger and stronger until she just had to touch one to be able to affect it, and then ones she knew she could turn on and use at a distance. Trevor's art was getting better and better, and he managed to get himself a full scholarship to the New Cork high school of the arts.

At this point, Amelia, aged ten, started behaving strangely. She was getting into fights at school with people twice her size, and mouthing off to teachers for no apparent reason. After she punched a teacher and broke the woman's leg, she was sent to a correctional school for one semester, and has been a model student since then, and refuses to discuss what caused the change of heart.

Unbeknownst to her parents and friends, she had befriended some people at the correctional school, and learned what exactly her skills could do. With their encouragement, she started taking money from major corporations, and giving it to her friends. With their praise singing in her ears, and with a boyfriend she became much more self confident and was able to use her own fantastic intelligence, which let her get back to normal school.

Her relationship with her boyfriend lasted all the way into junior high school, when they broke up over a pregnancy scare. Amelia was heart broken, and threw herself at any guy who was interested, which was plenty of them since she was starting to develop into the stunner she is now. She now has a great deal of trouble forming lasting emotional attachments, but she craves one desperately.

She did not steal much without her friends from correctional school pushing her into it, until her last year of junior high, when Trevor's life was emphatically ruined. He had finished high school and was paying his way through college doing art work for whoever would pay him. He was then offered a job for a major advertising firm for three times the money, which he happily accepted. He was treated terribly at work and would go weeks at a time without calling home, and would sound awful when he did. Amelia was the only one to suspect that something bad was going on, and when she went to New Cork with her scholarship to the Preparatory Academy, she found out exactly what.

Trevor was working ten hour days, and in school, and being paid thousands less than he was contracted for, but was being prevented from taking action. Amelia was furious at this and proceeded to take every bit of liquid cash the corporation had and donate it to charity, keeping a small amount for herself to pay for her apartment. And she liked it. Now, on an almost monthly basis certain corporations are being robbed of huge amounts of money, and Amelia is getting herself an increasingly nice apartment. But she's feeling restless and has started tackling banks, or simply getting through elaborate private security systems to leave messages to annoy paranoid geeks, or any system which can challenge her skills. All she needs most of the time is to get within range of the computer system she's trying to get into, and it's as if there's an open door.

Now that she's settled into her apartment and term is starting, she knows she will have to curtail her extracurricular activities, especially if she wants to continue with certain other extracurricular activities, but she is fairly sure that she can easily get enough to pay her rent and keep slightly less than a suspicious amount of money in every bank she can get to.

Name: Elaine Daniels

Description: Elaine is one of the most beautiful girls at New Cork Prep, with light brown hair and caramel highlights. Her sparkling hazel eyes are emphasized by the eye makeup she always wears, and her pretty pouting lips are always covered by shining pink gloss. Her hair is chin-length, and always carefully styled. Her skin, clear though it is, is always hidden under a thick layer of foundation. She wears short skirts and skimpy t-shirts, or jeans and a figure hugging coat, but both are accompanied by high heels which show off her stunning legs.

Biography: In 1994, Elaine was born as the youngest of three sisters in a predominantly female household, and as such she grew up wholly focussed on appearance. Her father is an accountant, and the only person Elaine truly trusts, while her mother is a housewife.

Aged 7, she was taken to the hospital for a heart transplant after she was involved in a car crash, and upon waking up after the operation, she felt... different. It was the only way to explain it. In the months afterwards, she grew stronger. She could run impossibly fast, but the most noticable change (to Elaine, at least) were her senses. She had a heightened sense of smell, touch, and sight, and always managed to be in the right place at the right time.

Ever since then, she's tried to do her best to help the people around her. She lives two lives, the popular princess at school, and she aims to help people whenever she has free time. She dislikes the term superhero, though. Her father is the only person she's ever felt comfortable around, because he's the only one who knows about her unique skills.

At home, her family life is at breaking point. Her parents are stuck in a loveless marraige, and Elaine knows this, but has nobody to confide in. She knows her parents won't divorce, because they worry about the repercussions too much, but she worries about them all the same, especially since she suspects her mother is having an affair. She wraps her mother round her little finger, because she knows her mother is proud of her being little miss popular, and uses that to her advantage. Elaine tends to blame her mother for all that is wrong in her life, especially for the relationship her mother and father have. She doesn't get on very well with her sisters, in spite of the fact that she knows she wouldn't be where she is today if it weren't for them. Her eldest sister is extremely clever, and is the reason Elaine is at NCP. Her other sister taught her everything she knows about makeup, boys, parties, and fashion, but Elaine secretly despises her for demeaning others which have done her sister no wrong. Even though Elaine knows she does this herself, she maintains that she does it to "keep up her image" and not to resolve any personal self esteem issues.

She tries her best to be normal, even though she knows it's not always going to work.

Amelia's short nails tapped against the wall of the cab she rode on, endlessly repeating a short song in light, percussive taps. The driver grinned at her in the rearview mirror, and she did not acknowledge him. She had a few hundred thousand dollars stashed in one bank, she needed to spend some of that down before it got noticed. She decided then to get a car, to not have to deal with cabbies.

They finally arrived at the academy, and despite the fellow's undoubted amusement at her, she tipped three hundred percent. She had the money to get rid of, and it did no harm to give the commons some reason to like her. Especially since she was probably taking or planning to take away his savings if he banked at any of her targets.

The school building was a heck of a lot more impressive than anything of its kind she'd seen in Daryland, and as she stood outside the gate for a moment, just looking, she sensed a sturdily secured computer network, and free WiFi. Sweet. The gate was open and there was a small but steady trickle of students going in and out, and so she joined them, pulling down her skirt so that it wasn't showing as much skin. She resolved to get herself a shirt that was exactly like the one she was wearing, but longer. And less hippie. She'd thought that she would be at the height of conservative dress, but she was quite surprised to see that she was the only one there in hooker boots. At least hers wasn't the shortest skirt, so it wasn't like she was going to have to worry about being perceived as a slut before anyone got to know her.

They herded all of the freshmen into an auditorium to hand out schedules, and to tell them the standards of behavior of the New Cork Prepratory Academy- no cheating, no fighting, no hazing, blah blah blah. Amelia had heard it all before, and she added to each forbidden item, no getting caught cheating, no getting caught fighting, and so on. Really the whole purpose of her even showing up at the auditorium rather than finding a janitor to make freinds with was so that she could start schmoozing and accumulating gossip.

The girl behind her in alphabetical order, Jennifer Waverly, told her that the most popular upperclassmen they'd be having class with was named Tricia North, and that she knew because her brother went here. The girl next to her during the lecture told her that the math teacher was nice but strict, and the history teacher was brilliant but couldn't control a class, and that lunch was in the middle of chemistry, all of the little bits of information she needed to be a model student for those that needed to think that.

The assembly ended, making history, their first class, short. Amelia volunteered answers, once for every three times that some girl who was building herself up to be an ostracized braniac, or every five times that some guy with the same problem did. It was enough to have the teacher know who she was, enough to make sure that no one thought she was an idiot, and less than what was needed to be seen as a nerd. She figured that at a prep school this elite, and that the terms of her scholarship were that she maintain a 3.5GPA, intelligence counted for something on the social totem pole.

Math was more of the same, with Amelia handling it the usual way she did- letting the computer in her graphing calculator do the work, and if it was unable to do it with what programs it had, she would use an actual computer, several of which were conveniently turned on in the room, and force it. She did understand everything that the calculator was doing, nonetheless, it could work faster than she could.

By that point she was fairly hungry, and she was quite irked to discover she had to sit through half an hour of chemistry before she could eat. She wasn't going to sneak off, not on the first day, which left her glowering at her note sheet and continuing her efforts to find a way to surf the internet directly in her mind without looking as glazed as when she actually sat in front of a computer and controlled it with the mouse and keyboard.

Finally a bell rang, and Amelia joined the tide of students converging on the cafeteria, and noted the ones leaving. Apparently New Cork Prep had lunch shifts. If little miss popularity that she need to schmooze with was in another lunch, she'd be pretty livid, but she would deal with it, just like she dealt with everything.

She only had to pretend to be a country bumpkin- with hooker boots and a bit of exposed thigh that the boy she asked couldn't stop staring at- once to be able to find out who Tricia North was. She was in this lunch, she was very blonde, and was sitting with four other girls at an empty table. Perfect. She gave the boy a hug and with a stammer he introduced himself as Luke, and she cheerfully told him to talk to her sometime.

As Luke attempted to pick up his scattered brain, Amelia haughtily walked over to Tricia's table and sat down, her boots clicking loudly against the floor as the five girls stopped talking and looked at her. Amelia didn't know if it was the alligator underwear she was wearing, which was pretty obvious in this skirt with this kind of table, or the fact she was a freshman, or what, but she just looked right back and unpacked a take out canister of vegetarian noodles.

She made some witty quip, if she was asked later she'd never remember it. Tricia laughed. All the other girls glanced at her as if wondering what her problem was, but she had an in, and was able to carefully join their conversation, carefully start to put in her tenterhooks. She found that Tricia had a boyfriend, and they were the picture of perfect couplehood, and that the only other dark haired girl there was a vegan named Mallory, and other random little tidbits. Who the girls didn't like. Who they found acceptable. Who they wanted in their clique. Amelia made herself a part of the conversation, made what she had to say so valuable, so entertaining, that it didn't occur to them to ask her to leave.

As she finished up her noodles and listened to Mallory talk about a guy she liked, she crossed her ankles and smiled inwardly. This was just way too easy.

Elaine swung her long tanned legs out of the car. Waving at her dad, who wished her good luck, she set out in the cold September air. She was suddenly aware that she wasn't exactly dressed for the weather- Wearing a skirt which showed off her long legs, and a tight tee which perfectly matched her lipgloss wasn't exactly suitable. Still, she was reassured by the fact that she wasn't the only one shivering. Tossing her hair over one shoulder, she smiled confidently and joined the mass throng trailing into the school building.

She found her way into the auditorium, where she learnt the rules. The girl next to her seemed nice, and they talked their way through the meeting. Elaine found out her name was Danielle. Danielle offered her some survival tips, too- Don't mess with the bad guys on your first day, and make sure you get your name out there on the it list.

Feeling ready to face it, Elaine set out for History, which was made short because of the assembly. She doodled her way through it, talked quietly, and occasionally answered a few questions.

Math was pretty similar. Getting to know the new faces- not many of the teachers expected pupils to be silent on the first day, and Elaine used this to her advantage, talking to as many people as she possibly could, finding out the fascinating (or not) tidbits.

By the time Chemistry came, she was bored out of her mind. As the lesson started, she slumped in her chair and clicked her high heels onto the table. She couldn't bear any more of this dreary "Today is your first day. This year you will learn.." stuff. It was all drivel. Sat at the back, she talked her way through the lesson until finally the bell went. Lunchtime.

Grinning eagerly, Elaine knew this was her chance. She had to get in with the "it girls."

Elaine set out for the dinner hall, swaying her hips and picking up a few wolf whistles, all of which she flipped the bird at. She wasn't a slut, she just enjoyed looking good. By the time she arrived, all of the cliques had set to their various tables. It was easy to see who was popular and who wasn't. Grabbing some food- a bagel and a milkshake, she walked over to the table with some upperclassmen on it.

"This seat taken?" She asked slyly. Silently, one of the girls, the one who appeared to be the queen bee, shifted her bag to the spot.
"Yes." She said, smirking slightly.
"Come to think of it, I'd rather not sit with a b****. Or her friends. Those who lay down with dogs get fleas." Said Elaine in a snide voice.

Walking away, she found Danielle.
"Given up on your quest to be popular?" Smiled Danielle, secretly jealous that Elaine had the confidence to approach those girls.
"Maybe nicer is better than popular." Said Elaine with a laugh, and took a seat next to Danielle.
"Only maybe?" Said Danielle with a raised eyebrow. Letting out a giggle, Elaine set about getting to know the others on the table.
"Hey, they've put up the sport notices." Said Kirsten Peters. "Anyone gonna sign up for anything?"
"I'll sign up for running." Elaine smiled.
"Yeah, same." Grinned Danielle, and they both got up.

As Amelia took everyone's food to the trash cans- she was a freshman after all- she had to fight to keep herself from laughing. It had been so easy to get in with these girls! They probably didn't consider her a friend, apparently Tricia and the others had been thick as thieves since freshmen year, but still. She was sitting there, she was in their conversation, and she was not being chased away.

As she tipped the trays, Mallory's take out and her noodle canister into the garbage and put the trays on the conveyor belt to be washed, she schooled her expression back into pleasant, superior neutrality.

She continued to insinuate herself into Tricia's social circle, and continued to marvel at how accurate high school stereotypes were. These girls were Bitches. Capital b, no asterisk. Mallory was the closest thing to a human being there, and she seemed like she was two steps away from becoming an eco-terrorist, and Elizabeth- not Liz, Elizabeth- seemed only able to talk about boys and clothes. Tricia had a bit more depth, and was the only one there that Amelia would say had any brains, excepting herself of course, and even though she casually talked about ruining people, at least she wasn't a poser as a demon-bitch, like the others. Amelia felt she had a lot in common with Tricia, and could see herself as her actual friend.

Case in point, some other freshman came up to their table, dressed almost as skankily as Amelia herself was, and asked if an empty seat was taken. As if the half empty table wasn't an indication to stay the hell away. Tricia, with as much wit and poise as Amelia aspired to have, took her bag off the floor, and put it next to her, saying with an insult so delicious in its simplicity, "Yes."

Amelia was impressed. That wasn't b*tchiness. That was being the embodiment of the b*tch-goddess.

The other freshman looked down at all of them, and said, in a tone of lofty superiority, "Come to think of it, I'd rather not sit with a b****. Or her friends. Those who lay down with dogs get fleas." She then stalked off to sit with another freshman.

"March of the freshmen cliche's?" Jodie, a senior with stylish horn rim glasses and a French accent that stank of sexy-librarian said. She gave a small look at Amelia at that, and she shrugged. She didn't know this freshie, but then again, social climbers were as useful to know as those that were ahead of you. She'd make it a point to introduce herself.

All of a sudden Tricia told the others that they were going to go back to class, and the look that she gave Amelia was more than enough to convince her not to follow. As the five of them stalked off, Amelia saw Jodie gesture at another table, and three guys peeled off almost immediately to follow them. Well! Good for them, it was always relaxing to have a... stimulating conversation before class.

Which left her sitting by herself. Which was completely unnacceptable, so she got up and walked over to a bulletin board on the other side of the cafeteria where several other freshmen were gathered. Her short skirt, so provocative when she was with someone else for contrast, just looked stupid as she made sure to walk, not run, across the cafeteria.

Everyone was crowded around sport sign ups, and Amelia debated whether she should go with the cliche, cheerleading, which would help her as a social climber, or if she should stick with what she was good at, track. As a result of her talents she had been able to win state championships in her age level for shotput and the 100 meter dash, and be in the top 5% for the 3200meter and the 1600 meter. That of course, was with her holding herself back. When she ran on her own, even without exhausting herself, she was suspiciously close to a world record for someone who slacked off at practice. And suspicion was not something she wanted.

Seeing that there were more names for track, more attention for the most talented girl on the team, she put her name down, and overheard someone say, "Yeah, I really want to try long distance, I run the length of the island every morning". She was about to say something friendly, that she was looking for a morning work out route, when she heard another, familiar voice, say "I'm pretty ace at running myself".

Social climbing toady. She chimed in, "Yeah, me too, I won states on the 100 meter last year." The girl who'd talked about running the island seemed fairly impressed, she couldn't gauge social-climber's opinion. She wrote her name in under theirs, apparently social climber was named Elaine, and runner was Danielle, and then turned to them and said apologetically, "I'm so sorry that Tricia was such a b*tch, but you know how it goes. I hope we can be friends!"

She sounded insipid, but it astonished her how well most girls responded to such a friendly, stupid sounding request. She had already pegged Elaine as brains-of-a-Dixie-Cup, so it should be just as effective on her.

Heading for the noticeboard, Elaine scribbled down both her and Danielle's name down onto the board.

"Done." She grinned. "You're down for long distance, with me."

"Yeah, I really want to try long distance, I run the length of the island every morning" Was Danielle's eager reply, much to the delight of Elaine.

"I'm pretty ace at running myself." She smiled confidently. Don't let it show just how ace you are she reminded herself. That could ruin her, oh so easily.

"Yeah, me too, I won states on the 100 meter last year." Came a voice behind her. Elaine swung round, only to find one of the girls from that b****'s table. Great.

"I'm so sorry that Tricia was such a b*tch, but you know how it goes. I hope we can be friends!" came the slimy voice. Smarmy b**** thought Elaine.

Looking the girl up and down, she smirked slightly.

"Don't apologize for her," she said snidely. She paused. "Not got fleas yet, then?" She grinned wickedly, before glancing distastefully at the girls shoes. "Nice slag-boots." She said, turning back to Danielle, making sure to flick her hair in the other girls face.

"You practise a lot at running then?" She said, continuing the conversation as if there had never been an interruption.

Wow, social climber was overcompensating for something! Three not particularly clever back insults in less than a minute to something not particularly provocative in the first place? No wonder she was a social climber, especially if she was going to comment on another girls hooker boots and then dress like that!

"Don't apologize for her," Had Amelia a chance to respond, she would have said that she was apologizing for the state of a high school microcosm where such things were acceptable. She was sort of glad that she didn't get a chance to say that though. It would imply that she was an amoral toad- which she was, make no mistake, but there was no need for Elaine to find out about that- and that she was powerless, and that she gave a damn. All very false or very incriminating things. Also, properly dumb girls didn't tend to discuss social microcosms, and she hadn't found out enough yet to determine if her intelligence would be a gift or a liability here.

Of course, the other girl spared her from a potentially awkward comment by getting into the crummy witty section of her doubtless limited reptoire of verbal repartee. "Not got fleas yet, then?" Fleas? Oh yeah, Elaine's comment earlier after Tricia's diss. So apparently she had a one track mind, or had been dwelling on the conversation. Good. If she was dwelling on a conversation with two exchanges, then Amelia had found a far more powerful sort of friend than she'd expected. Or a much more delicate relationship-as-yet-undetermined.

"Nice slag-boots." she said, and by this point Amelia had crossed her arms and assumed a mildly amused expression. Was she ever going to shut up? And they were nice slag boots, made her thighs look gorgeous, as every guy who had walked by in the meantime provided ample evidence for. The hair flip to the face was slightly unexpected, and her expression did waver as she sneezed slightly. Odd, she hadn't been allergic to anything ever since she was little.

She prattled something to her companion, a plainly dressed freshman, and Amelia grinned lightly. "They are nice boots. Course, they only look nice if you have something worth showing, so no wonder you don't like them," she said, bending slightly to fix one of the laces on them, which made every guy within twenty feet of them gawp as she straightened up and brushed some nonexistent dust mote from her skirt.

Elaine rolled her eyes. This girl, whoever the hell she was, just couldn't take a hint and piss off.

She responded to Elaine's less than admirable insult with an arrogant "at least I've got something worth showing off" comment, and Elaine was getting sick of the banter.

She rolled her eyes and smirked slightly at the other girl.

"It's good to know being a w***e still doesn't require niceness. I'll bear that in mind, if I ever stoop to your level." Elaine said. She'd never been good at back talk, she knew, but it was just one of those things you try to get over.

She glanced one more at Danielle. "We done here?" She smiled warmly. "D'you want to go sit on the grass or something for the last, like, ten minutes of lunch? This place sucks." She said, the last statement punctuated with a not so subtle glance towards the other girl.

Danielle smiled. "Sure, whatever." Elaine could see Danielle's thoughts going something like- well, she seems nice, and I need all the friends I can get.

And if that was the only thing Elaine had going for her, she honestly didn't mind. It was better than nothing.


((ooc: Sorry it took so long/is so short/sucks so bad. Hope you've got something to work with from that.))

Amelia saw that Elaine wasn't going to be particularly entertaining anymore, and she walked off, her shoes making her hips sway in a manner that was fairly pleasing, if the wave of silence behind her was anything to go by. Tricia and the others were still gone, so she spent the rest of lunch talking to a couple of nerdish guys who were shocked that someone who looked like her would even speak to them, or be able to hold her own in conversation. She always felt like she could be herself with no need for pretension with intelligent bottom feeders like this, because honestly, what harm did it do, other than what came from associating with them?

Her classes were dull, she spent most of them flirting with a succession of cute guys in athletics uniforms, so far her only indicator of actual social status, or making freinds with girls that seemed as back- stabitha as she was. Such freinds kept a gal on her toes, which was important.

She was in her last period class, leaning back and feeling quite pleased with herself for having done so well in her first day at school, when her phone started receiving a call. She was about to dive- elegantly- towards her bag to turn it off so she didn't have to deal with the embarassment of getting her phone confiscated on the first day, but then her own technological affinity said who was calling. She focused her efforts on not having the phone ring audibly, and excused herself to go to the bathroom. She slung her purse over one shoulder and then went outside. The cold bit into her bare legs a little, and she sighed as she flipped up the phone.

"This better be good Tony," she hissed, not bothering to calm herself down like she usually did when she had to interact normally with machinery. The phone on his end was probably wailing. She didn't know who "Tony" actually was, but he was her connection to the underworld, and how she knew where to go with the money she absconded with. He didn't know her real name either, and she knew he suspected her methods weren't entirely standard, but he didn't know the details, which was enough for her.

He wasn't stupid though, and with that thought the interference she was pouring through the line trickled away. "Sorry, must have been in a dead zone." she said.

"Sure," the soft basso rumbling said from the other end, with a light sarcastic twang to it. She pursed her lips, a display of emotion she wouldn't indulge in were they speaking in person. "As to what this is about... you know the Third Bank of New Cork?"

"Of course," she said, her mind already leaping to conclusions. She didn't rob banks, she robbed corporations. If she robbed a bank she'd be screwing over people who didn't deserve it at all. If she robbed a company, even the lowest underlings had a conscious decision to work there, and they were getting what they deserved for choosing the wrong path. It was enough to let her sleep at night and enjoy herself during the day. But a bank? None of them were any worse than any of the others, and such things were a necessity- she would know, if she kept all of her money in her apartment she'd need to buy the whole building.

"We have certain... files there, of a nature we do not wish the police to find." She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't robbing human beings, she was cleaning hard drives.

"I can make those disappear, no problem, you'll just need to tell me what I'm looking for, or where exactly they are." Tony didn't speak for several seconds, and Amelia raised one eyebrow, an effect lost through the phone. "Ah, that kind of nature."

"I have to speak to my superiors about this. I've been making out that you have superpowers," he said, with something that was an unpleasant cross between a laugh and a groan.

If she were talking to her peers she would have laughed prettily and said there was no reason to doubt she did, but Tony already had enough evidence to begin to suspect. So she told him to be careful, and hung up. She slipped her phone back into her purse and turned around to go back to class.

All of the blood drained out of her face as she saw who was on the steps. "Luke!"

"You remembered my name?" he said, seeming more surprised by that than by whatever he'd heard, what exactly had she said? Was it anything incriminating? Dammit, she might have to come up with some elaborate lie when she didn't even know what precisely she was lying about!

When she didn't answer he shrugged and said he was in a class by the window and saw her outside, thought he'd come out and compliment her daring since they tended to punish pretty harshly for cutting class. She thanked him for the warning and stalked back to class, wondering why on earth she had to attract all of the freaks.

Track practice was next, and she was just on time to see a bunch of people milling around, all in shorts and running shoes. Which she hadn't thought to bring. Today was not going well at all.